Yes friends and fans, after years of neglect by yours truly, gerbilprobe.com has been completely re-designed from the ground up and is live! The lovely Sauda Namir helped bring it to the modern internet age with a slick new design that is responsive, cool and easy to update. Check out my music, writing, performance and everything in between all in one place. Let us know what you think after you click around a little while!

The adjudication of our new plays was last night… it went exceedingly well, to the point where I was almost embarrassed by the praise one of the respondents was heaping on me.

The play: Antarctica.

The summary: Godot on skis.

The verdict: They loved it. Both of them had universally spanning epiphanies during the show, which I suppose is all I could ask for and more. They also enjoyed the monologue (Stag King), telling me that I was “a very good playwright.” As a self-flagellating artist, it was nice to hear that… they really “got it” too, which is the ultimate compliment. I don’t think I could have been more blessed. Thanks to my cast and crew for working so hard to make it magical for me… I love theatre… I really do.

In other news… work on the experimental play continues… an excerpt:

4. Better Days Ahoy!

(MUTE enters pushing a wheelbarrow full of sausages. He is dressed as JESUS CHRIST, with halo and flowing white robe. He very slowly crosses the stage. At center he stops, takes a bite out of one of the sausages. He chews it thoughtfully for a moment, then speaks to the audience.)

A friend of mine had the idea of posting 10 second plays. So here’s mine. Please leave, as your comment, your own 10 second play, and perhaps I’ll do something cool with them some day or something. Have fun!

ABACUS by Michael A Rose

TONY
(Sits playing with an old abacus)
What fun! I certainly enjoy my abacus!

First of all, I apologize to those few people who care for my lack of posts in the past few weeks. Things have been occurring at an extremely rapid pace, and I find myself reeling in the wake of all the changes life has brought me as of late. I suppose I should begin at the beginning, go through the middle until the end, and then stop, as that’s how most stories go.

I got to school the other day for grad orientation. In our Theatre dept. all the grad students must be there for workshops, policy changes, introductions to the new students and other such happenings. Several people needed to speak with me all at once, which was a bit disconcerting. Turns out that they’ve completely changed my assistantship.

I’m teaching a section of Theatre 101, Theatre Insight, which is an overview of the whole of being a theatrical artist. Interesting subject matter, but the terror in my heart springs more from the lack of experience teaching than the lack of information on the subject. Of course I know more than them… of course I can talk in front of people… but every time I close my eyes, I imagine them as angry pirates who want to pillage me.

The second part of my duties this year include the position of House Manager for the McLeod Theatre. This was interesting news, as such jobs are highly coveted and quite an honor to receive. I’m the fellow you see in the lobby shaking hands, kissing babies, putting out fires and pointing ushers toward confused patrons! I’m looking forward to the PR opportunities there, but of course that adds another brand new experience to my acclimation process this semester.

The teaching was still terrifying even as I walked in to the classroom for the first time today. 55 students, about half of which were there when I walked in, were waiting for me to impart grandiose wisdom on them, or at least looking for an easy A. I tried to explain while going through the syllabus that this is not an easy A class. I hope that they believed me, although somehow I doubt it.

For the first half of class, I was hyper aware of my own nervousness, which made for a lot of pacing back and forth, the occasional “uhhh” and a good deal of confused note-checking by yours truly. I definitely need to work on my classroom confidence, or they’ll smell the fear and eat me alive. Happily, once we got going, they paid attention and were generally participatory.

One group near the back of the room was working together on my “What is theatre?” exercise. A couple of guys who looked like they’d rather be in metal shop, and an Mtv princess type — or so I thought. After going through most of the answers, I called upon them to answer whether or not my walking into class that day with bright red hair and asking them questions about the nature of theatre was indeed “theatre.” They surprised me with an excellent answer: “Yes, because I’m standing in front of an audience and conveying information or emotion.” THE MESSAGE. YES YES YES. I’m starting to look forward to this? Well well…

One source of amusement for me was looking out on the crowd and seeing three or four freshman girls in various parts of the room paying rapt attention while I talked. They looked at me with doe eyes and cute smiles that told me all about why they were paying attention to me. At least they’re paying attention, even if it’s for the wrong reasons. One of them was her group’s spokesperson and they also did the question about me lecturing (what is theatre) and she said it was… because there was costume to it (my shirt and hair) and I was entertaining the audience… then she said “And you’re… arousing…” I stopped. The class stopped. Then we all laughed. She continued: “Arousing… interest in your students!” The poor thing looked pretty embarrassed, but it was pretty funny.

The title of this entry doesn’t have a lot to do with the content, although emotionally I feel rather naked, thus my entry, and mentally I’ve been doing a lot of screaming lately. Also, it’s raining today.

I knew graduate school wouldn’t be a walk in the park, but I feel sometimes that my mouth is full. It’s not more than I can chew, but it hurts my jaw and makes me want to spit some out just so I can breathe. With the immense work load in tow, the assistantship job in publicity is sucking the life out of me lately. It’s one of those jobs where nobody notices it until they feel something is amiss, and then you’re blamed for not doing the tasks that you didn’t know were yours in the first place. It’s terribly difficult to publicize information when you aren’t given the information in the first place, and when you ask the people who should no and they simply shrug and tell you to ask someone else, you’re pretty much up a creek.

Despite that, life in general has been okay I suppose, although I haven’t really been here for it. My full length play “Louie’s at 1st and Main” opened for it’s second production this past weekend, this time at my old college, Minot State University. I’ve been informed that it sold out 2 out of 3 nights (opening night was almost full), which is incredible and great news for me. I’ve been getting emails from people who I only knew in passing telling me how “beautiful” and “moving” my play was; a much needed boost of confidence. I would have liked to have been there for it, but I can’t do much about that, given my distinct lack of time and money.

Thus begins another week of screaming. Hopefully there will be some rest as well. I don’t know if my brain can handle all that noise.